Stone Circle Folk Tales

Cameo — feel free to skip! :)

Faculties and capabilities being limited as they were did not prevent Swiftlet from displaying remarkable precociousness in his first week of life. Impatience, too, and in equal measure. If his mother was not around or if he could not find a teat fast enough (immediately), he would start grousing about it, and off he would go crawling in quest of more milk. He might only turn in circles or pull himself across his sister and back again, but he would do so with surprising command of his limbs and with some sort of elegance about his infant bumbling. He could even right himself and twist out of a bind with appreciable slickness.

But one thing the second-born did not display was any early signs of cleverness. Katla's ear, her tail, his mother's toes and nose... a clod of dirt. These things and anything and everything else were met with his gums when he was wanting to suckle, and on more than one occasion he would swat away or nose past the very thing he was searching for. Fortunately for him he was seldom left to struggle this way for too long, and presently he was enjoying a great drink of the good stuff after having been scooped to the feeding post and having managed to latch to the proper appendage.

With a teat finally in his mouth (it had taken a moment! perhaps as many as two!), the boy had no interest in being disturbed. His response to the snuffling and presence of some new being was muffled squeak-growling, followed by a series of twitchy kicks from one of his stubby hind-paws as he felt the newcomers limb settle beside him.